[Lazarus] What is the future of NoGUI widget set?

[Mattias Gaertner]

On Tue, 25 Jan 2011 10:45:43 +0100 (CET)
michael.vancanneyt at wisa.be wrote:

> 
> 
> On Tue, 25 Jan 2011, Felipe Monteiro de Carvalho wrote:
> 
> > On Tue, Jan 25, 2011 at 10:33 AM, Graeme Geldenhuys
> > <graemeg.lists at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> I have to agree with Michael. I also can't understand the point of the
> >> 'nogui' widgetset.  An application is or GUI or non-GUI (latter
> >> requiring no widgetset at all).
> >
> > Does it need to have a point? Some people find it useful, so there is
> > no harm in including it. It has zero effects on the code of people
> > that don't use it.
> 
> It must somewhere have a point, because it certainly has lots of disadvantages:
> 
> a) It deceives people. You'll get run-time errors if at any point you try to do
>     something GUI related such as showing a dialog or getting a font metric.

The same could be said for the cocoa, android or fpgui widgetset.
There are always users with wrong expectancies.

 
> b) It encourages people to write bad code. Example: the well-known EpikTimer.
> 
>     It is a perfect example of a badly written component. It includes
>     Forms, Dialogs and whatnot in the uses clause, when there is
>     absolutely no need for them. But by doing so, it creates a dependency on
>     a GUI when there is no need for one.

EpikTimer existed before the nogui widgetset.

 
> c) It creates larger binaries.

Yes. There are better solutions, but they cost more time.

 
> d) The widget set - like any other - requires maintenance.  If it isn't
>     there, there is no work needed.

The maintenance is far less than one promille.

 
> Plenty of reasons for not having it.


Mattias